El Pla Director de l’Educació Especial de Catalunya

Stephen J. A. Ward

Modern journalism ethics was built upon the twin pillars of truth and objectivity. By the early 1900s, journalism textbooks, associations and codes of ethics cited truth and objectivity as funda-mental principles of the emerging profession. Truth and objectivity have long roots in journalism, going back to the advent of the periodic news press. The claim to provide accurate and impartial reports or “relations” was made by the editors of the newsbooks of the seventeenth century. Two centuries later, mass commercial newspapers displayed a “veneration of the fact” (Stephens, 1997, p. 244).

Today, the pillars of truth and objectivity show serious wear and tear. To some, the concepts are antiquated, due to at least three factors: First, a corrosive post-modern scepticism about ob-jective truth. Second, a cynicism about the ethics of profi t-seeking news organizations. Third, a belief that non-objective journalism is best for an “interactive” media world populated by citizen journalists and bloggers. The result is an intense debate about the principles of journalism.

Prima facie, it may appear nonsensical to question truth and objectivity. How could journal-ism ethics not include the duty to seek truth? Shouldn’t journalists provide citizens with the most accurate information possible? Truthfulness in communication is imperative for any responsible communicator, let alone powerful news organizations. How can journalists claim to inform citi-zens if they don’t follow objective standards?

These questions raise important considerations but they are an inadequate response. They are naïve historically, politically and epistemologically. Historically, surprise at such doubts forgets that objectivity, as an explicit doctrine, is relatively recent. For most of the 400 years of modern journalism, journalists were expected to be partisan, not impartial. Politically, incredulity forgets that a full-blooded affi rmation of truth-seeking and objectivity in journalism is hardly universal.

Support for truth-seeking journalism is weak in authoritarian societies. In democracies, at times of insecurity, citizens may support a patriotic journalism that restrains truth-telling and takes the

“side” of government. Epistemologically, the assertion that truth and objectivity are obvious prin-ciples fails to engage criticism in academia and in journalism. Perhaps other values, such as care or civic engagement, are more important than truth and objectivity (Steiner & Okrusch, 2006).

Therefore, any discussion must begin with the problem of truth and objectivity in journal-ism. The disagreements are too philosophical to admit of simple solution. One can, however, shed light on the problem by examining the evolution of the main theories and showing the way forward. This historical and diagnostic approach guides what follows. I outline how truth and objectivity came to be principles of journalism ethics, and how they came under attack. Then I propose an alternative theory of objectivity.

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TRUTH AND OBJECTIVITY IN JOURNALISM

There are many theories of truth and objectivity. Philosophers have offered theories of truth in terms of “realism” (or correspondence with fact), the coherence of ideas, well-justifi ed belief or successful prediction (Horwich, 1990). But not all theories have played a dominant role in the history of journalism ethics. The practice of journalism has tended to rely on a simple version of the realist notion of truth that stresses the accurate observation of external events. Realism holds that a belief or statement is true if it accurately describes some object, fact or state of affairs in the real world. True beliefs “fi t” with or correspond to the world as it really is. False beliefs do not. The realist idea of beliefs “fi tting” the world is a natural attitude to take toward questions of truth and falsity. In our everyday lives, when our common sense is not entangled in philosophical doubt, we are all “naïve” realists.

“Realism” also refers to a sophisticated theory of truth developed from antiquity onward.

For Plato, truth was not shifting belief about quasi-real objects but certain knowledge of tran-scendent and truly “real” objects (Cornford, 1968, pp. 217–218). Aristotle in his Metaphysics defi ned truth as “to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not” (1011b22-30, p. 749).

Propositions are true or false depending on whether they accurately predicate a property of an object—whether propositions correspond with reality or the facts. Moreover, Aristotle thought that the disciplined, scientifi c mind is capable of knowing the true causes or external principles of reality.¹ Realist theories explain the “fi t” of belief and object in different ways.² A simple or

“minimalist” realism ignores complicated questions about how ideas correspond to objects by defi ning truth as such: “A statement (proposition, belief) is true if and only if what the statement says to be the case actually is the case” (Alston, 1996, p. 5). It is true that grass is green if it is the case that grass is green.

Realist theories separate the question of what is truth in general (the concept or property) from how we determine what is true. For the realist, truth is not justifi cation. There may be many truths about the world that humans may never know. A justifi ed belief, considered true at time t₁ may be shown to be false at time t₂ in the future. Why, then, do realists seek justifi cation through standards of evidence? Because they make it more likely that our beliefs are true. Despite the va-rieties of realism, the essence of realism is that our beliefs are made true by some reality external to my mind. External objects provide an objective check on my beliefs. Historically, journalism’s realism has relied on common sense. If a journalist accurately reports on what was said or done, then the report is true. A news photograph is true if it captures an external event without distor-tion. If not, it is false. Since journalism is a practical craft covering ordinary events, journalists tend to presume that a simple realism and a rough-and-ready empiricism are suffi cient to guide their activities.

To situate journalism’s idea of objectivity, we need to note that, in Western culture, there have been three senses of objectivity: ontological, epistemological and procedural (Ward, 2005, pp. 14–18; Megill, 1994, pp. 1–20). A belief is ontologically objective if it denotes an indepen-dently existing object, property, fact, lawful regularity or state of affairs. Something is ontologi-cally subjective if it is non-existent or exists only in the mind, such as perceptual illusions or hallucinations. Ontological objectivity is closely associated with a realistic theory of truth as correspondence with external objects. Epistemological objectivity refers not to external objects but to the methods and standards by which we come to hold beliefs about objects. Beliefs are epistemically objective if they satisfy our best practices and standards; otherwise they are sub-jective. Epistemological objectivity requires our beliefs to satisfy a range of standards derived from logic, perception and the canons of inquiry. We seek methods of discovery and standards of evaluation because truth is not directly accessible. Procedural objectivity is the use of objective

criteria not to describe an object but to make a fair judgment, such as when we hire employees or award contracts.

Journalistic discussions of objectivity combine all three senses of objectivity. Ontologically, journalists claim they describe things the way things are. Epistemologically, they support their claims by appeal to their sources, their evidence, their methods. They also evoke a procedural sense of objectivity by claiming that they judiciously balanced views and treated sources fairly.

Historically, even the editors of the seventeenth-century newsbooks assured readers their reports were true because they used certain methods, such as relying on eye-witnesses and reliable cor-respondents, and by comparing different reports of the same event (Ward, 2005, pp. 108–115).

By the nineteenth century, epistemological objectivity would be the dominant sense of objectiv-ity in journalism. Reporters disciplined their pursuit of news with a complex set of standards and procedures. The standards and rules would form the doctrine of news objectivity or “traditional objectivity” by the 1920s.

TRADITIONAL JOURNALISM OBJECTIVITY

By “traditional objectivity” I mean the original notion of news objectivity fi rst espoused by North American print journalists in the early 1900s, fi rst advocated by American journalists and then adopted by their Canadian colleagues. Objectivity was never widely popular in European jour-nalism. At the heart of traditional objectivity is the idea that reporters should provide straight, unbiased information without bias or opinion. The idea is summed up by imperatives to “stick to the facts” and to avoid “taking sides.”

After the First World War, “objectivity” arrived as an explicit, common term, espoused by leading editors and widely practiced in newsrooms. The term occurred in numerous press codes, articles and textbooks. One of the earliest known uses of journalism “objectivity” is found in Charles G. Ross’s The Writing of News, published in 1911: “News writing is objective to the last degree in the sense that the writer is not allowed to ‘editorialize’” (Ross, 1911, p. 20). Recogni-tion of objectivity as a formal ethical principle can be traced to two major codes of ethics: the 1923 code of the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) and the 1926 code of Sigma Delta Chi, forerunner of the Society of Professional Journalists. The ASNE code, the fi rst national American code, said that anything less than an objective report was “subversive of a fundamental principle of the profession.” Impartiality meant a “clear distinction between news reports and expressions of opinion” (Pratte, 1995, pp. 205–207). The principle of objectivity was second only to the principle of truthfulness in the code of Sigma Delta Chi. “Truth is our ultimate goal,” said the code. “Objectivity in reporting the news is another goal, which serves as a mark of an experi-enced professional. It is a standard of performance toward which we strive.” Objectivity reached its zenith in the 1940s and 1950s. Brucker saluted objective reporting as one of the “outstanding achievements” of American newspapers (Brucker, 1949, p. 21).

Traditional objectivity can be defi ned as a type of report:

A report is objective if and only if it is a factual and accurate recording of an event. It

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reports only the facts, and eliminates comment, interpretation, and speculation by the re-porter. The report is neutral between rival views on an issue.

Traditional objectivity was literally a “doctrine”—a rich web of ideas. The doctrine elabo-rated on journalism’s commonsense realism and empiricism, disciplining it with rules, standards and attitudes. Journalism objectivity was, and is, an ideal implemented in newsrooms by standards

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and practices. It was, and is, an ideal that helps to distinguish types of story and to organize the content of news products. The ideal can be analyzed into six standards: (1) standard of factuality:

reports are based on verifi ed facts; (2) standard of balance and fairness: reports balance and fairly represent the main viewpoints on an issue; (3) standard of non-bias: the reporter’s prejudices and interests do not distort reports; (4) standard of independence: journalists are free to report without fear or favour; (5) standard of non-interpretation: reporters do not put their interpretations into reports; (6) standard of neutrality: reporters do not take sides in disputes.

These standards were, and are, operationalized in newsrooms by rules on newsgathering and story construction. All opinion must be clearly attributed to the source, accompanied by direct quotation and careful paraphrasing. Objective practice asks reporters to verify facts by reference to documents, scientifi c studies, government reports and numerical analysis. To enhance objec-tivity, reports are written from the detached tone of the third-person. Phrases that indicate a bias or are an unjustifi ed inference from the facts are eliminated or translated into neutral language.

The objective style of news writing tends to be the so-called inverted pyramid, which conveys the most important facts, tersely and quickly. By the early 1900s, many mainstream newsrooms were divided into news sections, operating according to these rules of objectivity, and editorial sections where objectivity did not apply. Newspapers were divided into news and opinion.

WHY TRADITIONAL OBJECTIVITY?

Why would journalists restrain their freedom to publish with an elaborate system of rules? Why did journalists believe that this demanding doctrine was appropriate for the hurly-burly world of journalism? The historical reasons are many. Some major factors were: (1) the objective style fi t the emphasis on news that was driving the development of a mass commercial press; (2) increased demand among the public for accurate, updated information, rather than partisan opin-ion; (3) the need to reduce sensational “yellow” journalism, which raised public criticism; (4) the need to provide professional and ethical standards for a growing craft, and to protect journalists’

independence; (5) increased independence of newspapers from political parties and a motivation to publishing news “for everyone”; (6) a scepticism about the ability of undisciplined empiricism to discern the facts and avoid manipulation.

With the rise of the mass commercial press in the second half of the eighteenth century, the primary business of newspapers changed from providing opinion to providing news. Electricity, more powerful printing presses, trains, a national economy and better educated populations in growing urban centres—all combined to create large papers, with staggering increases in circula-tions and advertising revenue (Baldasty, 1992). The telegraph made rapid transmission of news possible and encouraged a crisp factual style. News agencies, founded on the telegraph, showed journalists how to write objectively. In 1866, Lawrence Gobright of The Associated Press in Wash-ington wrote: “My business is merely to communicate facts. My instructions do not allow me to make any comments upon the facts which I communicate” (quoted in Mindich, 1998, p. 109).

In society, the public increasingly needed accurate information and was less tolerant of the old partisan opinion press. The newspaper increasingly depended on circulation and advertising rev-enues, not political parties. It was increasingly written for a wide diasporas of readers at a cheap price, not for a small group of political sympathizers who could afford subscription fees. Yet the growth in reporting was not enough to bring about a devotion to objectivity. Before objectivity could become dominant, the desire for news had to be tempered by a willingness to discipline that desire.

A willingness to restrain journalism, and to articulate norms, grew out of a concern about the excesses of “yellow journalism,” the headlong pursuit for the sensational story, as evidenced

in the fi ercely competing papers of Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. In time, the charge of

“yellow journalism” would include the fi rst tabloid papers in the 1920s (Campbell, 2001). An-other factor was the growing awareness that reporters’ chronicles of events were being distorted by their subjectivity, their desire to “sell” the news, interfering press barons and advertisers, and the manipulation of government and corporate propagandists. The rise of the press agent and the success of propaganda during the First World War called for a journalism that tested alleged facts (Schudson, 1978, p. 142). Naïve realism now seemed inadequate. An impulse to chronicle the world was not enough for truthful journalism. The idea grew among leading journalists and journalism associations that journalists, like other professionals, needed an ethics that stressed the reporter’s impartiality and the separation of facts and opinion.

By the turn of the century, writers and textbooks were laying down the basics of objectivity.

“It is the mission of the reporter to reproduce facts and the opinions of others, not to express his own,” wrote Edwin Shuman in 1894. Shuman, the Chicago Tribune’s literary editor, published the fi rst comprehensive American journalism textbook, Steps into Journalism. His book con-tained the basics of traditional objective journalism: the inverted pyramid style, non-partisanship, detachment, a reliance on observable facts and balance. Shuman quoted approvingly an AP direc-tive to its employees, which stated:

All expressions of opinion on any matter, all comment, all political, religious or social bias, and especially all personal feeling on any subject, must be avoided. This editorializing is the besetting sin of the country correspondent and a weariness of the fl esh to the copy-reader who has to expunge the copy’s colourings and invidious remarks about individuals. (Shuman, 1894, pp. 65–66)

The difference between objectivity and the preceding empirical realism was the strictness of its norms and its detailed set of rules. Objective reporters were to be completely detached; they were to eliminate all of their opinion; they were to report just the facts. The traditional language of journalistic objectivity was a language of self-denial, restraint and exclusion.

Objectivity was justifi ed as a method for producing more accurate, truthful reports and more independent professional journalists at a time of growing skepticism about the press. Objective reporting, it was argued, was crucial to egalitarian democracies. Commentary was not enough, and biased (or manipulated) reporting tainted the information supply. Citizens needed objective news about their government to make political judgments for themselves. Journalism, Lippmann claimed, only served democracy if it provided objective information about the world, not “ste-reotypes” (Lippmann, 1922).

CHALLENGE AND DECLINE

The heyday of traditional objectivity was from the 1920s to the 1950s in the mainstream broad-sheet newspapers of North America. The doctrine was so pervasive that, in 1956, press theorist Theodore Peterson said objectivity was “a fetish” (Peterson, 1956, p. 88). The second half of the century is a story of challenge and decline due to new forms of journalism, new technology and new social conditions. There have been three types of complaint: First, objectivity is too demand-ing an ideal for journalism and hence objectivity is a “myth.” Second, objectivity, even if pos-sible, is undesirable because it forces writers to use restricted formats. It encourages a superfi cial reporting of offi cial facts. It fails to provide readers with analysis and interpretation. Objectiv-ity ignores other functions of the press such as commenting, campaigning and acting as public watchdog. Finally, objectivity restricts a free press. A democracy is better served by a diverse, opinionated press where all views compete in a marketplace of ideas.

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Objectivity was challenged from its inception. Henry Luce, who founded Time magazine in the 1920s, dismissed objectivity: “Show me a man who thinks he’s objective and I’ll show you a liar,” Luce declared.³ He argued that events in a complex world needed to be explained and inter-preted. The new magazine “muckrakers” of the early 1900s rejected neutrality in reporting. The emergence of television and radio created more personal forms of media where a strict objective style struggled. In the 1960s, an “adversarial culture” that criticized institutions and fought for civil rights was sceptical of objective experts and detached journalism. Other journalists prac-ticed a subjective “personal” journalism that looked to literature for its inspiration.

In the fi nal decades of the century, online journalism gave further support to interpretive or opinion journalism. New media technology allowed almost anyone with a computer to publish their thoughts, commentary or photos online. The rise of the unprofessional or untrained “citi-zen journalist” and “blogger” is hailed as the democratization of news media, and adding to the diversity of voices in the public sphere. “Social media”—websites that allow citizens to express opinions on events and to share stories about their lives—attract millions of readers and

In the fi nal decades of the century, online journalism gave further support to interpretive or opinion journalism. New media technology allowed almost anyone with a computer to publish their thoughts, commentary or photos online. The rise of the unprofessional or untrained “citi-zen journalist” and “blogger” is hailed as the democratization of news media, and adding to the diversity of voices in the public sphere. “Social media”—websites that allow citizens to express opinions on events and to share stories about their lives—attract millions of readers and